Chapter Four – Game of Hearts.

Wendy breathed in heavily, before tossing the ball high above her head and smacking it as hard as she possibly could, launching it towards the opposite end of the volleyball court for the 'rival' group of her teammates to make their move and to prevent the ball from hitting the ground in their court.

The raven haired beauty usually played as a setter, since she was one of the taller girls in the volleyball squad and could commence the team's attacks very skillfully, with much needed precision.

On the opposite side of the volleyball court, Nichole successfully caught the hurdling ball and passed it to Esther using the underarm pass. The tall, dark haired girl made the second move and passed the ball over to Bebe, who thwacked it towards the opposite end of the court and was hoping for her 'rivals' to lose their rally this time.

But of course, Jenny had been more than ready as she managed to smack the ball in the right direction and successfully passed it over to Wendy, who hoisted herself up in the air and slammed the ball into the opposite side of the court with all the force she could muster, effectively winning another rally with her teammates.

Breathing out heavily, Wendy smiled to herself. Her feet thudded against the surface as she was pulled into another group hug by her teammates. All of the girls were very exhausted, but still felt incredibly proud of themselves and their improved game play.

A whistle blew for the end of another very tough, but productive and excellent volleyball practice.

''Awesome job girls!'', the girls' volleyball coach spoke, with a proud smile forming in the corner of her lips.

Mrs. Norbert was a shorter, fit brunette woman in her late twenties and one of the South Park High School's newest physical education teachers. Although she had only been coaching the girls' volleyball team for three years, she was definitely one of the most responsible people for making the South Park Cows quite a formidable and lethal volleyball team, with them having an excellent winning strike of nearly twenty five matches over the last two school years. Of course, the majority of their success came from having a great roster of players on all of the volleyball positions.

''Evergreen Eagles aren't going to be an easy team to beat, since they've had quite a good winning streak in both home and away games. However, I'm sure that you girls will give your best to stop their lucky strike and beat them properly. They might've had their winning streak keeping them afloat, but some of their most important players are injured, which we could use to our advantage.''

''Coach, do you have any news about the team we're going to play against at the Homecoming game?'', Heidi asked, putting her long brunette hair into a ponytail and draping it over her left shoulder.

''Well, we were in the talks with North Park Avalanches about them possibly being a guest team at our Homecoming game this year, but because we still haven't gotten any response back from North Park about their participation, we decided to cancel the game against them and will play with the Evergreen Eagles instead. They have expressed a strong desire to play against us, so they are going to be the guest team at our Homecoming game this year.'', Mrs. Norbert explained briefly.

''Okay girls, I'm quite pleased with today's practice. All of you have gotten better at your game play and our usually weaker defense has definitely improved a lot too!'', the volleyball coach spoke. ''You're all dismissed now. I'll see you all on Wednesday, and of course, good luck!''

Wendy turned around on the spot and began to make her way towards the girls' locker room, putting her long raven black locks out of her now ruined ponytail and allowing them to cascade down her back. The dark haired volleyball captain walked inside the locker room and grabbed her sports duffel bag from the floor, taking out her roll-on deodorant. She got out of her slightly sweaty volleyball practice clothes and tossed them inside the duffel bag, putting on a pair of black skinny jeans and an oversized comfortable hoodie.

The raven haired teenager grabbed her sports duffel bag from the floor and swung it over the shoulder, waving goodbye to her teammates as she made her way out of the girls' locker room and began walking towards the gymnasium's exit. She walked around the corner into one of the many school hallways and noticed that the preparations for the Homecoming week had already started and were in full swing.

She soon walked inside the main corridor of the school and noticed that the walls had been slightly more decorated than before, with swirls and ribbons of all shapes and sizes hanging from them. The bulletin boards had posters put up on them, as well as the schedule for the Homecoming events that were set to happen in the upcoming week.

A lot of Sophomore students decided to volunteer in the preparations for the Homecoming week, primarily the female Sophomore students that chose to help out the Junior and Senior students with making and putting up various fancy green, black and white ribbons and streamers all over the school's hallways and the main corridor. Students that were slightly more tech savvy had been helping out with setting up the electronic cables and lightning above the theatre stage, creating special effects for the upcoming school plays or making sure that the DJ booth would be ready for the Homecoming dance.

As Wendy was making her way down the corridor, she allowed her lips to wriggle into a small smile upon noticing a very familiar blonde figure sitting on one of the benches in the school's main hallway. They were clearly being too busy fiddling with their phone to notice the dark haired girl approaching them.

"Hey Tweeks!"

The nervous blonde teenager flinched instantly, glancing up from his mobile phone screen to face the dark haired teenage girl standing relatively close to him. "GAH! Oh, hey Wends!''

Tweek Tweak had still been the blonde ball of anxiety, although not as much as he was back in the elementary school. Thanks to the joint efforts of his parents and his boyfriend Craig, the disquieted teenager was finally able toget off the meth-laced coffee that he would be consuming in enormous quantities over the years, thus ending the seemingly never-ending cycles of constant jitters and nervousness. Although he hadn't been completely able to refrain himself from drinking the caffeinated goodness, he did switch to drinking only frappuccino or the decaffeinated coffee if he would be in the mood to consume anything with the tiniest hint of caffeine in it.

Smiling at her coffee-loving friend, Wendy plopped down next to Tweek on the bench and placed her volleyball duffel bag beside her. ''What's up?''

''Ack! N-nothing much, I'm just waiting for Craig to be done with his detention so that we can have dinner over at his h-house!'', Tweek explained briefly, taking another sip of his Harbucks double frappuccino drink. ''W-what's up with you?''

''I was just done with my volleyball practice for this week and it was exhausting, to say the least. We have the Homecoming game against the Evergreen Eagles next week and our coach has been really pushing us towards improving our general game play.'', Wendy replied.

''R-really? That's awesome.''

''Yeah, I'm pretty stoked for the game and I'm hoping that we hammer the Evergreen.''

''W-well, I'm hoping you guys will do it! You've really been on a roll for the past y-year or so.''

''That's something that we're definitely gonna' try do to. I mean, even though it's only a Homecoming game and our rivals are usually weaker, this year we were supposed to play against North Park Avalanches. However, they haven't been exactly timely when it came to talks about participating in our Homecoming game this year, so the school invited Evergreen Eagles volleyball team to play against us and they happily accepted the invite.'', Wendy pondered, clacking her fingernails against the smooth surface of the bench.

Taking another sip of frappuccino, Tweek smiled softly at the raven haired volleyball captain. ''Gah, I'm sure you will win again this y-''.

Before Tweek could even finish his sentence, the nervous blonde teenager flinched out at the sound of his mobile phone buzzing loudly twice. He placed his frappuccino cup down and unlocked his phone swiftly, before a small smile spread across his face. ''GAH! Craig's done with his detention for the day and told he's going to be here in a few minutes.''

''Dude, Craig's truly lucky to have you as his boyfriend. You decided to wait for him to be done with his detention so that you can hang out afterwards. I call that being one hundred percent dedicated to your significant other.''

''Argh, thanks Wendy!''

''No problem sweetie.'', the raven haired beauty smiled, getting up from the bench and swinging her sports bag over her shoulder. ''Anyway, I have to go and find the girls, just in case they might need an additional helping hand with putting up decorations and other crap for the Homecoming week.''

''See you around!'', Tweek said, offering a small wave to the ravenette girl.

Making her way further down the main hallway of the school, Wendy spotted Red, Nichole and Millie hanging decorative flowers and ribbons all over the walls of main corridor. Three girls had been one of the Sophomore students that decided to help out the Junior students with setting up the decorations and glittering up the usually boring and depressingly dull hallways of South Park High School.

''Hey girls!'', Wendy chirped happily, approaching her oldest girl friends.

Red turned around on the spot, smiling at her dark haired friend. ''Oh hey Wends. What's up?''

''Nothing too special, I was just done with my volleyball practice. What's up with you guys?''

''Well, some Junior students asked us if we would like to help them with decorating the school and as you can tell, they are totally helping us.'', Nichole chimed in, rolling her eyes exasperatedly and pointing over to the group of five or more Junior students being totally caught up in their conversation and not even a one bit interested into helping their younger peers.

''Yeah, I can tell.'', Wendy responded back sarcastically. ''Do you guys maybe need an extra help?''

Millie smiled sweetly at her friend, before politely shaking her head 'no'. ''No Wends, you really don't have to. And besides, we are nearly done with decorating and only need to put up a few more streamers.''

''So…'', Red began, curling one piece of glittery paper around the scissors to create the streamer. ''Are you guys going with anyone to the Homecoming dance?''

"Isn't it a bit too early to start talking about the Homecoming dance?", Wendy replied, placing one hand on her left hip.

''Not really, because the dance is only week and a half away. I think it's pretty normal to talk about who are we going with to the Homecoming, what are we going to wear and all the other things.'', Millie argued, pinning one final poster on the bulletin board.

"I'm definitely going with Token, but he hasn't asked me about going with him to the dance yet. I mean, it was never doubtful that he's gonna' be my date.", Nichole explained.

''Red, are you going solo this year or did you manage to get a date as well?''

''Well…'', the vibrant haired girl began. ''I'll probably be dateless. I don't care too much about it, to be completely honest.''

"Mills, what about you?"

The strawberry blonde girl bit down on her lip teasingly, trying to subside the sudden urge to let out an exciting squeal. "I'm going with Clyde. He asked me if I wanted to be his date to the dance and obviously, I just couldn't say no!"

Excited smiles were instantly plastered across the faces of the other three girls, but definitely none of them could match the one Millie had on her face.

"Really? That's awesome Millie! I know Clyde's had a thing for you for quite some time now."

''Yeah, I actually thought he wouldn't even come close to me in a six foot radius. Also, I thought that he still had a thing for Bebe, so you can only imagine how surprised I was when he asked me to come with him to the dance.''

''I think you really don't have to worry about Clyde still drooling over Bebe.'', Wendy explained. ''I guess that he realized that his chances of ever getting back together with her were over when she became interested in Kyle again.''

"Wends, what about you? Who are you going with?", Red spoke, raising a curious eyebrow at Wendy.

The raven haired beauty snorted sarcastically to herself, folding her arms across her chest. "With no one, just like last year."

Swapping a curious glance with both Nichole and Millie, the red haired teenage girl replied. ''Really?''

''Yeah, it's not like I'm really interested into having a date anyway. Last year I also went without a date and had a total blast.''

''That's interesting, because we were kinda' expecting Stan to invite you to go with him, since you have apparently been on good terms for quite some time.''

''Look, Stan and I are just friends.'', Wendy's response was immediate. ''However, if he does actually ask me to go with him to the Homecoming dance, I'm not gonna' be an asshole and say no. We've been on good terms for quite some time now and I really don't want to mess it up.''

At the end of the day, Stan and Wendy were just friends. And nothing more than that.

Just friends.

Right?

''Do you have any idea from where we could start writing our assignment?'', Stan scratched the back of his neck irritably, slouching himself down in his seat.

''Not really. I guess I probably should've picked out something else for us to write about, rather than the topic about goddamned hormones.'', Wendy replied back, crossing her arms across her chest.

For the past twenty five minutes or so, the two raven haired teenagers had been sitting at the dining table in Wendy's living room and were trying to come up with the ideal way of how to start their Biology assignment. Their respective Biology textbooks and notebooks were laying open on the table, as well as Wendy's laptop that she had brought along with her from her bedroom.

But neither Stan nor Wendy couldn't actually think about the proper way of how to start writing the topic of their Biology assignment.

''You know what, I'm gonna' use Wikipedia as a starting point. Just so that we can have some sort of an outline for the assignment.'', the dark haired boy said, before reaching forward for Wendy's laptop and placing it in front of him.

''Stan, Wikipedia isn't exactly the most reliable resource, since it's an open source type of website and anyone can do changes on the articles and mess with the information they contain.'', Wendy replied to her ex-boyfriend. ''Didn't you listen to Mrs. Harvey when she was talking about using various resources other than just Wikipedia and WikiHow?''

''I might have zoned out at that part, though.'', Stan shrugged his shoulders in defense. ''I just don't see the problem with using Wikipedia for the starting points and then using some other scientific website for the most important information, as well as for the nitty-gritty details.''

''Well, we could.''

''I'm just saying how I usually try to do these assignments – I use Wikipedia for the starting points and then collect information from the other websites.'', the raven haired teenage boy explained further.

''Yeah, yeah. It actually sounds very good.'', Wendy commented. ''She also said that we have to list all of the resources we are going to use for writing the assignment.''

''So, we only have to write about the hormones and how they affect the human body?''

''Well, that is what Mrs. Harvey suggested at first.'', Wendy began. ''After we made the rough outline for our assignment, I actually did a few minor changes to it and asked our professor if we could instead write about something slightly different, but still stick to the main topic of our assignment.''

''And what's different compared to the topic she suggested we write about?''

''Well, we're still going to do the introductory part about hormones – what they are, what's their role in human body and the main groups of hormones. But, we're specifically going to focus on the 'happy' hormones, aka serotonine, dopamine, endorphine and oxytocin.''

''Good.'', Stan smiled at his ex-girlfriend. ''I guess we can finally start from somewhere.''

''Yeah, we can even do a breakdown for all the titles and subtitles. At least we now have some sort of a starting point for the assignment.''

Swapping a gentle smirk with each other, Stan and Wendy finally decided to start working together on their assignment.

The raven haired girl opened the Microsoft Word app on her laptop, while Stan wrote down a short summary for their assignment and created the table of content. They both agreed on using Wikipedia for collecting the basic information about hormones and decided to write at least one page of their assignment.

''How many pages do you think we should write?'', Stan asked his ex-girlfriend, keeping his eyes glued onto Wendy's laptop.

''Honestly, I don't know. Mrs. Harvey didn't give us an exact number of pages we have to write, but as far as I can tell, twelve to fifteen pages should be more than enough.''

''Good, if you say so.'', the raven haired teenager smirked.

Mirroring the smirk her ex-boyfriend had plastered on his face, Wendy snorted teasingly to herself. ''If I say s-''

''Yeah, I do trust you when you say that fifteen pages will be enough to write. I mean, I wouldn't write more than ten or twelve pages.''

Chuckling to herself, Wendy shook her head slightly. ''Since when are you so interested in Biology?''

''Who says I am?'', Stan argued.

''I don't know. Do you have an A from Biology?''

''I don't have to be interested in a certain subject to excell at it, Wendy.'', the teenage boy heaved his shoulders up, before shooting his ex-girlfriend a small and genuine smirk.

''Well, I guess that's kinda true.''

''It is true, Testaburger.''

''Zip it Marsh.'', Wendy smirked cheekily at her ex-boyfriend. ''Now come on, we have to finish the last part of the first page!''

Both raven haired teenagers chuckled to themselves. They had been surprised by how well they were still in tune with each other, especially when taking into consideration everything that had happened between them over the past year and a half.

''Are you excited about the Homecoming week?'', Stan blurted out, not being quite aware of what he had just said.

''Well, I actually am. We have the game against Evergreen Eagles on Wednesday and we've been training very, very hard for it.''

''Good, but do you think you can beat that team? I've heard that their winning streak has been very good.''

''Our winning streak is twenty five compared to their nineteen. I think it's pretty obvious who has the advantage and which team is better.'', Wendy smirked, before one interesting thought suddenly sprang into the forefront of her mind.

''Since when are you so invested in volleyball?''

''Who says I'm interested?'', Stan's retorted immediately. ''Okay, if you really wanna' know – Bebe's been asking Kyle to come and watch you guys play on Wednesday, but he's probably gonna' ask me and Kenny to tag along with him since we haven't had that much time to hang out together over the past few weeks.''

''Oh, okay then.'', Wendy shrugged her shoulders in response, as another thought hopped into her mind. ''I still remember how you said that making jokes is actually harder and requires more skill than girl's volleyball.''

''Well, my opinion on girls volleyball might have changed over the years, but I still don't think it is as exciting as football.''

''Speaking of football, you're going to play as quarterback on the starting team this year?''

''Yeah, fucking finally! I honestly can't wait for guys and me to get out on the field next Thursday and hammer the Middle Park Cowboys. After playing as a substitute the whole Freshman year, this will be much more challenging, but I'm not going to complain about it.''

''What about Scott Gaffrey, school's former main quarterback?''

''Well, Scott is still in the process of recovering. However, I'm sure he's going to switch positions and play as a fullback once he returns to the team. Also, he said that he has absolutely nothing against me playing as the main quarterback and gave me his full support.''

''I know the way that I was promoted to the starting team wasn't exactly the most meritable one, but hey, I couldn't care less about it.'', Stan continued further.

''Fingers crossed that you guys beat the Middle Park. I know I'll be cheering for you guys anyway.''

Cocking a curious eyebrow at his raven haired friend, Stan chuckled. ''You're back on the cheer squad?''

''Yeah.'', Wendy confirmed. ''It's been a bit tough to balance it all out with volleyball and being in the student body council, but I'm doing just fine.''

''Well, you have always had many extracurricular activities. You are one person that I'm not doubting about being able to balance between their extracurricular activities and excelling in school.''

Trying her damnedest not to allow the blush to creep across her cheeks, Wendy smiled sweetly at Stan. ''Thanks, I suppose?''

''My pleasure.''

The Homecoming week couldn't have rolled around faster.

Perhaps the three most excitable events set to happen that week were the volleyball match between the South Park Cows and the Evergreen Eagles on Wednesday, the Homecoming football game between South Park Cows and Middle Park Cowboys on Thursday, and the cherry on top of everything, the Homecoming dance on Friday night.

Of course, no sporting events, school plays or art exhibits could've been on par with the Homecoming dance in terms of excitement amongst the students. As well as in the terms of sheer annoyance for the janitors to clean up the whole mess afterwards.

It was Wednesday evening now, and the much anticipated game between South Park Cows and Evergreen Eagles was about to commence.

The two volleyball teams had always had a fierce, but friendly rivarly. And although the nature of the Homecoming game wasn't as competitive as the usual games between the Cows and Eagles, both teams had still been quite eager to achieve a win.

After a warm welcome to the guest team, the national anthem being played and the team plannings on both sides of the volleyball court, the game was ready to finally begin. Instead of the coin being tossed to determine which team would get the first serve, the South Park Cows instead let the guest team have their serve first.

The first set was easily won by the home team after the girls managed to hammer the Eagles 25 – 12, effectively using all of their serving and passing mistakes to gain a pretty comfortable lead. However, by the time the third set had rolled around, Evegreen Eagles managed to catch up on the South Park Cows by winning the second set after using the home team's defense mishaps to their advantage.

But of course, the home team won the next two sets with a significant margin and achieved the victory by beating the Evergreen Eagles 3 – 1 on the scoresheet.

As the whistle blew for the end of the game, all of the South Park Cows players hurdled together into a group hug and cheered loudly. Winning the Homecoming game was only an incentive for the girls to improve their game play even further and continue their incredible winning streak.

Kyle, Stan and Kenny were amongst the many supporters who had showed up to give their support to the girls and to cheer loudly for them.

''Dude, the girls are freaking awesome!'', Kyle spoke eagerly.

''Yeah! Have you seen how fucking hot their butts look in those volleyball shorts?'', Kenny replied in his usual, perverted nature, causing both Kyle and Stan to groan out in unison. He had spoken more clearly since getting rid of his dingy orange parka and swapping it for something that wouldn't muffle his speech anymore.

''Do you always have to think with your dick?'', Stan said, shaking his head in disbelief.

''Of course!'', Kenny smirked cheekily. ''Don't pretend like you didn't look at Wendy's butt at least for once, especially when she was squatting down to prepare the serve.''

Slightly taken aback by Kenny's bluntess, Stan could only pinch the bridge of his nose nervously and let out a groan. ''Of course I didn't look at her butt, you idiot. I only came here because Kyle wanted you and me to hang out together a bit.''

''It has nothing to do with Wendy, goddamit.''

''Look Stan, I might not be an expert when it comes to long-term relationships or on any sort of a romantic relationship for that matter, but I sure as hell do know that there is still that teeny tiny piece of you that likes Wendy.'', Kenny said, sporting a smug smile on his face. ''Yeah, you guys might be on friendly terms right now, but knows what will happen between you two.''

''We are just friends, okay?'', Stan replied back sternly, not wanting to listen to any one of Kenny's obviously crazy insinuations about the two raven haired teenagers and the state of their friendship.

Three boys eventually made their way down to the volleyball court to congratulate the girls for winning their game.

Kyle immediately pulled Bebe into a hug and spun her around on the spot, kissing the blonde beauty gently over and over, never wanting to let go of her. Kenny's attemps at peeking at the butts of various South Park and Evergreen volleyball players had turned out to be surprisingly successful, as he even managed to get a few quick shots with his phone before inevitably earning a good slap or two from both Jenny and Esther.

Stan zipped over to Wendy and gently tapped her on the shoulder, instantly catching her attention. She spun around on the spot and felt her heart flutter slightly at the sight of Stan standing opposite of her.

''Hey.'', he spoke gently. ''Congrats for the win.''

''Thanks, the game wasn't as tough as we first anticipated it would be.'', Wendy admitted, locking her eyes with Stan's beautiful blue eyes. ''And thank you for actually coming to the girl's volleyball game.''

''Well, you have got to thank Kyle and Kenny for dragging me come with them.''

''Will do.''

After a few moments of slightly awkward silence, Stan cleared his throat and offered his ex-girlfriend a small, sincere smirk. ''The last serve was really, really good.''

''Oh, thanks. I mean, I've been practicing with all types of serves for this game and it was crucial to master all the serves. Because in the volleyball game, you simply can't use just one type of serve.'', Wendy smirked at her ex-boyfriend.

Nodding his head in agreement, Stan could only smirk back at her.

But suddenly, one slightly nerve-wracking idea thudded at the forefront of the raven haired boy's mind. He immediately began feeling a bit more nervous than before, thinking of the proper way of how to word his idea. He kind of knew that Wendy's would react strangely to his proposition, but he couldn't have known her reaction without asking her first, obviously.

Ask her if she wants to go with you to the Homecoming dance, you idiot!

"Hey Wendy...", Stan began nervously, shoving his hands inside the pocket of his dark gray hoodie.

"Do you perhaps want to go with me to the Homecoming dance?"

Wendy immediately went silent. She couldn't exactly muster the proper response right away, but when she decided to go along with what heart had been telling her, the dark haired girl wasn't even going to attempt to deny it.

"Actually…", Wendy smiled softly at her ravenette friend and took a step closer to him. "I wouldn't mind it."

''Good.'', he smiled at her gently.

Wendy stood on her tip toes and shyly wrapped her arms around Stan's tall figure, pulling him into a small, but friendly hug. She felt her ex-boyfriend hugging her back in the same manner, making her heart flutter slightly in her chest.

Although both Stan and Wendy weren't willing to admit it, it felt strangely good to be in each other's arms after such a long time.

And there was even one more thought that both of them could have mutually agreed on.

This can't go any further, right?

Well, another chapter down and seven more to go!

I actually had to rewrite about two-thirds of this chapter, because I made a dumb mistake of not backing it up on my OneDrive account and lost nearly three thousand words in the process. I honestly wanted to smack myself in the head for not having an additional backup, but whatever. I would usually write all of my fanfics on Doc Manager, but definitely not after this fuckup!

I thoroughly enjoyed writing the volleyball game part, although it was ridiculously hard to write. I swear that I spent like two hours on the freaking Wikipedia page reading about the basic rules of volleyball and how it is supposed to be played. I think that speaks volumes about how much dedication I pay towards those tiny details that really make the story better all-together. :)

And it is more fluffiness for Stan and Wendy in this chapter. It's getting very obvious that the two of them are still slightly attracted to each other, but continue to vehemently deny it. The Homecoming dance should be very interesting, to say the least. ;)

As per usual, thanks to each and every one of you that takes the time out of their day to this story (as well as my other works). Your reviews, follows and favorites are the reasons that keep on pushing me to go ahead with this story and to make it better with each new chapter.

Until next time,

- xoxo, whisperinthemoonlight.